Global Discovery in New York
The eight students who were selected to travel to New York for the Monash University Global Discovery Program
Eight talented Monash students have returned from the trip of a lifetime to New York as part of the University’s first Global Discovery Program.
The students travelled through New York on an eight-day internship program which included visits to the United Nations and Bloomberg headquarters and New York University, as well as lunch with a senior advertising executive. They also attended functions with Monash President and Vice-Chancellor Professor Margaret Gardner AO and senior Monash alumni.
Offered for the first time in 2015, the University’s Global Discovery Program is an initiative of the US arm of the Monash Global Leaders Network – groups of active Monash alumni and friends in Hong Kong, Indonesia, mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, the UK and the US.
To be considered for the program, the students were asked to provide a short video on how they would change the world. From more than 400 entries, 20 students were shortlisted to move onto the interview stage with staff from the University’s External Relations, Development and Alumni team (ERDA) and Monash Abroad.
The students shared their overseas experience, photos and videos on the Global Discovery Program blog.
Monash law student Benjamin Campbell, a former journalist and public relations practitioner, was selected to take part in the program.
“We have visited the offices of Bloomberg, dined at the Harvard Club, strolled along Wall Street and met with industry leaders, including Sue Fennessy, who is in the process of launching her own social network: a digital platform with a charitable arm at its core,” Benjamin said.
"Throughout these inspiring meetings, we have discovered so much about the business world, and the skills required to succeed within it. We have been pushed, intellectually, to consider a range of brand new ideas being deployed to market."
The New York program is being led by Monash graduate Sue Fennessy (BA(SocSc) 1994). Motivated by her own Monash-sponsored visit to New York when she was a first-year student, Ms Fennessy, founder and CEO of data technology company Standard Media Index, and founder and chairperson of We Are 8, was instrumental in creating the program in collaboration with ERDA.
Along with fellow alumni Patrick Loftus-Hills, Anne Valentine-Andrews and Karl Redenbach, Ms Fennessy believes the experience will empower the students with the knowledge, skills and connections that enable them to excel on a world stage.
The students chosen to take part in this year’s program were Benjamin Campbell (Law); George Kennedy (Arts); Kate Maxfield (Medicine/Arts); Emma Moore (BusEco, Law, Arts); Neha Patil (Arts); Mari Smith (Engineering/Art Design), Tony Tan (Science/Arts) and Christopher Tham (Medicine).
Get a feel for the Global Discovery Program – take a look at the 'Monash University Global Discovery Program' video on the Monash Alumni YouTube channel.